Oceanographic processes and products around the Iberia continental margin: a new multi-disciplinary approach?

Our understanding of the physical oceanographic processes that affect sedimentation and erosion, e.g. overflows, tide, deep sea storms, vortices, internal waves and tsunamis, is improving.
However, the results of such processes on the depositional and erosional features in the ocean are still less extensively studied. In the present compilation an overview of some key physical oceanographic processes and their sedimentary products around the Iberia margin is presented. The oceanographic processes are affecting the shape and evolution of the Iberian continental margin and adjacent oceanic basins, but have nonetheless been somewhat overlooked historically. A better understanding on the effect of the
oceanographic processes on e.g. contourite sea-floor features, their spatial and temporal evolution, and the near-bottom flows that form them is needed in order to understand how the Iberian continental margin functions. It is proposed that more intensive collaboration studies between specialist from Geology,
Oceanography and Benthic Biology in multi-disciplinary approach should be prioritized in the near future combining oceanographic data, sea-floor morphology, sediment and seismic characterization and benthic
biologic mapping. This will be essential to improve our knowledge of the permanent and intermittent processes around Iberia and evaluate their conceptual and regional role in the margin evolution over time and space.